1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to a communication apparatus capable of recording a voice received from an external device and simultaneously outputting the voice being recorded.
2. Description of Related Art
Many conventional telephones are equipped with an answering function for recording a message from a caller and are designed to output the voice being recorded, so the called party may monitor the caller's voice from a speaker separately provided.
With such an answering function-equipped telephone, a user can hear a message from a caller as the message is being recorded, if the user is around the telephone (or the speaker) but does not or cannot answer the call for some reason. That is, the user can hear the message without needing to listen to the recorded message later.
However, since the aforementioned conventional answering function-equipped telephones output a caller's voice from a speaker, the message can also be heard by a third person near the telephone (or the speaker). Thus, the conventional answering function-equipped telephones have a problem of being unable to assure the secrecy of messages.
Many conventional automatic answering function-equipped telephones allow a user to reduce the volume of the caller's voice to a low or zero level by operating a volume button. If the volume is thus reduced, it may become necessary for a user to re-operate the volume button in order to obtain a sufficiently audible volume when the user desires to hear a message. The potential need to repeat such a troublesome operation of the volume button is another problem of the conventional art.
Although the problems of the conventional art have been stated in conjunction with a telephone set, these problems can occur not only in telephones in a narrow definition, but also in any communication apparatus equipped with a similar function, such as, for example, a facsimile machine with a message recording function.